The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
PART I
1
I was ten when I made the decision to kill Jemma.
Her family – parents and an older sister – had moved from London to our small country village six months before. The first morning, Jemma had waltzed into our class completely unfazed by the wide eyes and audible whispers that followed her progress like sunflowers to her sun.
Our teacher, Miss Dryden, a tall willowy woman with steel grey hair and watery blue eyes, held a hand lightly on her shoulder and introduced her. ‘I know you’ll all be delighted to welcome Jemma to the class and help her to settle in.’
She was the first new girl to have joined our primary school class and she brought with her an air of city sophistication that easily dazzled us. Her clothes, hair, shoes, even her schoolbag were all a little bit exotic. To us girls who desperately wanted to grow up, she appeared to have reached heights we only aspired to.
It wasn’t long before she became the girl everyone wanted to be friends with, not long before I, and others like me, discovered that the girls who surrounded her were arranged in a distinct hierarchy. There were the best friends, limited to four; a larger circle of girls who were allowed to join in the chat on occasion; a wider group who were allowed to peer in; and then a final group who were deemed unworthy of any access. For an individual or group to prevail, there needed, after all, to be another for them to lord it over. A group they could all be superior to.
I was in this latter group. I don’t know why. Perhaps the pairing of the slight frame I’d inherited from my mother, with the overlarge nose and mouth inherited from my father, didn’t present a beguiling appearance. Perhaps that was all it took… to look different.
Despite my appearance, school had been a happy place for me before her arrival. Inclusion was taken for granted. When it began to fade away, I was confused and bewildered.
The name calling started first, a mere week after Jemma’s arrival. At first, I didn’t understand, didn’t know they were referring to me, when I heard one or more of her inner circle shouting watch out here comes Jaws, or, have you been telling lies again, Pinocchio. Each time they would fall around themselves with laughter, as if the sobriquets were amusing rather than mean… and painful… and confusing.
I wasn’t the only victim. There were four other members of my unpopular group who received an equal share of this new unwanted attention. If only we marginalised group of five had gathered together, if we’d found strength in our common woes and learnt to fight back, but that never happened. Perhaps we were afraid of confrontation, or was it that we regarded each other with as much disdain as Jemma and her cohorts did. Whatever the reason, we stayed individually isolated in our roles as victim.
Over the following months, the bullies seemed to grow taller and bigger. I was the perfect victim, smaller and thinner than my tormentors, too easy to push around. They took more delight in their ‘fun’ with every passing day. When I didn’t react, they’d close in, jostling me, grabbing my schoolbag, plucking at the sleeve of my coat.
That day, I didn’t see whose hand had sent me flying. When I turned to challenge the act, I knew it was useless, so I picked myself up and walked away as quickly as I could. The stinging damage to my hands and knees brought tears to my eyes, but I refused to let them fall till I was a street away. On my own, overwhelmed by confusion, sadness, and frustration, one heaving sob started a free-for-all. I was barely able to see as I walked the short distance to my home.
My knees were skinned, the palms of both hands scratched and bloody. The band that kept my long thin hair back from my face had been lost. Tangled strands fell forward, catching in my tears and the bubble of snot that vibrated from one nostril with every pathetic hiccupping cry.
The back door was open, and I saw my apron-clad mother busily stirring something on the hob. ‘Hi,’ she said, without looking around, my noisy sobs lost in whatever was bubbling in the pot. It was silence that made her turn, one finely plucked eyebrow arching higher in a question she didn’t need to ask when her eyes took in my dishevelled appearance.
She dropped the wooden spoon on the counter with a clatter that sent beads of sauce flying in a messy circle. Then I was in her arms and clasped to a bosom almost as flat as my own. ‘Lissa! What happened?’
‘One of the girls pushed me.’
Through my tears and pain, I saw my mother’s horrified face and head shake of disbelief. ‘No, darling, I’m sure it was an accident.’ She bathed my wounds as she muttered reassuring words, convincing herself, not me, that her version of my story was correct.
There was so much pain in her eyes that I couldn’t help it, I relented. ‘I remember now, I tripped and fell.’
I was rewarded by a warm comforting hug, by the relief on her face that she didn’t have to confront something nasty, cruel and mean.
Young as I was, I knew she was emotionally fragile. If her world didn’t run on happy lines, she’d retreat into herself, hiding away until the wave of whatever outrage had occurred, had receded. Once it had, she’d be back, full of loving smiles, ready to be the best mother a lonely, sad goblin of a child could want.
So it was better to lie. To keep the nastiness from seeping into our home.
Young as I was, I tried to protect her, but I couldn’t stop the world turning…